page_title: Irving Adler
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Irving Adler / Life
caption_attribution_description: English: Irving Adler @ 4
context_page_description: Irving Adler was an American author, mathematician, scientist, political activist, and educator. He was the author of 57 books about mathematics, science, and education, and the co-author of 30 more, for both children and adults. His books have been published in 31 countries in 19 different languages. Since his teenaged years, Adler was involved in social and political activities focused on civil rights, civil liberties, and peace, including his role as a plaintiff in the McCarthy-era case Adler vs. Board of Education that bears his name.
context_section_description: Irving Adler was born in Harlem, in New York City, the third of five children. His parents emigrated to the United States from Galicia, a part of Austria, which today is a part of Poland, with his father coming in 1906 to seek work and his mother following four years later. His father, working first as a house painter, earned enough money to start a small business selling ice, coal, wood, seltzer, and prohibition beer (less than 1/2 of 1% alcohol). Adler was given the Hebrew name Yitzchak, anglicized on his birth certificate as Isaac. His name was changed to Irving by a school clerk when he was enrolled in elementary school. Adler was accelerated in school five times, entering Townsend Harris High School at age 11 and beginning City College (CCNY) when he was 14. During his junior year he was awarded the Belden Gold Medal for excellence in mathematics and a Silver Medal for ranking second in the college. Adler graduated magna cum laude from CCNY in 1931, when he was 18.
  Adler began his teaching career with a one-year appointment as a teacher-in-training at Stuyvesant High School. After being licensed as a regular teacher, he taught for 3 years as a substitute teacher during a period when the Board of Education, in violation of state law, refused to fill vacancies with regular teachers entitled to full benefits. He joined the Unemployed Teachers Association, which filed a lawsuit that resulted in 3,500 teachers, including Adler, being elevated from substitute to regular status in one day.
  In the course of Adler's activities in the student peace movement of the 1930s, he met Ruth Relis, a Barnard College student whom he married when she graduated in 1935. Irving and Ruth Adler had two children, Stephen and Peggy.
  Adler taught mathematics at various New York City high schools during the 1930s and 1940s. He was chair of the math department at Straubenmuller Textile High School from 1946 until 1952. He was also an active member of the New York City Teachers Union, Local 5 of the American Federation of Teachers, and was drafted into a leadership role as a member of its executive board, chairman of the educational policy committee, and then as chairman of the salary and legislative committee.
caption: Irving Adler in 1917
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